Archive for March, 2013

IBM Endpoint Manager Software Usage Analysis (otherwise known as IEM SUA) allows you to easily determine what software is deployed across your organisation and how actively it is being used on each computer. With SUA you can easily determine whether you’re effectively using more expensive software such as Microsoft Project or Visio on all of your computers. IEM SUA is not only useful to improve the efficiency of your software but also substantially reduce the amount of work required for software compliance audits.

In the following article, I’ll step you through the installation of SUA 1.3.

Run the SUA installer exe. Select Next, Accept the licensing terms and click Next

Select the SUA folder installation and click Next, click Install

Once the install is completed click Finish

Once SUA has been installed, the configuration wizard will automatically after after a few seconds. Click Next

I’ve included a number of screen captures for configuring SUA during the install below. I used NT authentication, however you may wish to use SQL authentication.

Note: Notice how I changed the default port for SUA from port 80 to 81 below (so I didn’t have a clash with Web Reports). I also used a local account for my test server (which already exists). You’ll most likely have your SUA server a member of a Windows domain, in which you may want to use an authorised service account.

Progress for the SUA installation is shown below:

Once the install is completed click OK and then click Finish

When I’ve installed SUA, I’ve sometimes been prompted with the following error installing SUA “Execution of user code in the .NET Framework is disabled. Enable “clr enabled” configuration option”. This requires running this command on the SQL Management Studio before I configure SUA and then restarting the server.You can download the SQL Management Studio from here if applicable – http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8961.

Run your web browser and browse to http://localhost:81 (port 81 if applicable). Enter the SUA administrator and password as shown:

Configure the datasource as shown below:

Next select create a new Datasource. Enter details as shown below, along with an EXE scan location of C:\Program Files (x86)\BigFix Enterprise\BES Server\UploadManagerData\BufferDir\sha1 (change to another drive letter if appropriate)Select Test and one confirmed ok, select Save

We’ll also schedule how often we want SUA 1.3 to import the data uploaded to the server from the clients. To do this, select Import options and enter the following details to run the import once per day. Select Save.

You will now have SUA installed, so we’ll now go to the IEM console and configure the clients which will send software usage information to the SUA server.

Select Manage Sites, Tivoli Endpoint Manager for Software Usage Analysis. Under the Computer Subscriptions tab, change the value from No computers to All computers and select Save Changes

Select System Lifecycle. Then select Setup – Activate Analysis. You should see three Analysis as shown in the example below. Activate each of these.

Next select Setup – Deploy Scanner to Endpoints and select Install Scanner, select Take Action. The scanner will then be deployed to the endpoint.

Once the scanner is deployed to each endpoint, you can then configure the scanner to run periodically (by default it runs once per week). Select Setup – Schedule Scan on Endpoints (note it can take a few minutes before the scanner you’ve deployed is relevant to this Fixlet). If you review the Execution tab, you can see the scanner will run by default every 7 days.

Note: It’s probably a good idea to do each of the three items above on a group basis, so that as you deploy additional endpoints they’ll automatically be setup for SUA processing.

There is a nice SUA health dashboard as shown below:

If relevant, new software catalog updates will be shown here along with instructions to download and install these on your SUA server.

Note: When you log back into the SUA server you won’t immediately see any software usage information until the clients have sent their data to the server AND the data import task has run (which you’ll remember we set on a once a day basis). You can run the data import process immediately if you want to see information like the following:

That’s it. SUA is now up and running and you can easily see what software is installed and being utilised in your company. It’s worthwhile watching the following video which gives an overview of the SUA 1.3 console. If you have any problems, please post your query to the IEM SUA forum.

Are you benefiting from IBM Endpoint Manager SUA? If so we’d love to hear from you.

My brother (who is a chef) tells me I can’t cook. I assemble food. So I’ve really enjoyed Jamie Oliver’s 15 minute meals and trying new ideas at home. So in the spirit of cooking a meal in 15 minutes, I thought I’d document how easy it is to install the latest release of IBM BigFix in less than 15 minutes.

Let’s turn up those hot plates to full and start cooking…

First start by downloading the server software from here. If your trying out the software (30 days/30 devices) download the evaluation version, otherwise you’ll want the non-evaluation version (IBM will have supplied you access to the license key center where you can download a license file)

Run the BigFix-BES-9.0.586.0.exe installer

Select Next and then either Evaluation or Production and then Next

Accept the license agreement and click Next

As I had used a production licenses I chose the top option here

Enter an appropriate DNS name for your BigFix server. You cannot change this later, so consider having a DNS alias if required that can be mapped to a server in your organisation. If you’re setting up BigFix on the Internet for a cloud service, consider using services like no-ip.com or elastic ip with AWS.

Save location of the private key. I usually create a License folder on the server and save it there. For production environments this may be in a secure key location.

You will now submit your BigFix server information to IBM. If you can browse the Internet with Internet Explorer you should be ok, however in some cases you might need to perform this via a two step process (the second option)

Now create a masthead file for your environment. This file is used for clients to locate and securely communicate to your BigFix server

Choose the location for where BigFix will save the Installers directory. This is the location where the Server, Console and Clients will be installed from below. You can accept the default directory, or maybe select a larger D: drive if appropriate. Then click Finish when completeTime so far, 7 minutes….

You’ll be prompted with the following window where you’ll then install the Server, Console and a Client on the server.

Select Install Server and then select Install the Server on this computer

Select Next and the following items you can leave as default and click Next

Select Single or Master Database (larger environments can have a replicated database option)

Select Use Local Database. If you have SQL already installed, it will use it to host the BigFix databases. Otherwise it will use SQL Server 2005 Express (test environments). You can also use a remote SQL server however ensure it’s connected to the BigFix server via a high speed connection.

Chose the location of SQL 2005 Express if applicable

Chose the location of the BigFix server and click Next

Select Next to accept the BigFix web server location and URL (used by the clients to communicate to the server on port 52311)

Select Next to accept the default Web Reports settings. Note that port 80 is being used, so if you install other services like SUA on this server in the future, chose another web server port.

The server is about to be installed, click Next. BigFix will now install the server.

Select your private key and now enter in the default BigFix administrator account. I like to use BFadmin or IEMadmin so it’s a different name to Windows Administrator.

You can now run the diagnostics tool to ensure BigFix is setup ok. The client isn’t installed yet, so that will be done shortly.Time so far, 11 minutes….

Install Install Console and then Install the Console on this Computer

Select Next, and Install. I usually don’t run the console just yet until the local client is installed (next steps)Time so far, 12 minutes….